Trump Boosts US-UAE Ties with AI, Trade Agreements

Prime Highlights:

U.S. President Donald Trump arrives in the UAE, declaring more than $200 billion worth of deals to deepen economic and technological ties.
UAE and U.S. agree on a deal to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) at a blistering pace, under which there is a huge plan to import AI chips.

Key Facts:

Etihad Airways spends $14.5 billion to buy 28 Boeing aircraft as part of the overall U.S.-UAE cooperation.
UAE will build a 5GW AI campus, which will be the biggest AI-specific building outside of America.

Key Background:

United Arab Emirates has also been working to position itself as a technologically sophisticated world hub by investing heavily in artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technology. This is also part of a broader vision for UAE to diversify the economy away from oil and establish it as a prime source of innovation and high-tech industries.

Before this visit, U.S. policy put stringent controls on sales of cutting-edge technology like AI chips, in fear of technology transfer to competitor powers like China. But with shifting geopolitics and rising Middle Eastern entanglements, the Trump administration has been pushed to loosen those controls, paving the way for deeper collaboration with close partners like the UAE.

The UAE’s campus strategy for artificial intelligence is a significant investment in the creation of an AI technology research and development as well as deployment ecosystem and a global companies’ magnet and talent development. This is simultaneous to the United States’ concurrent planning to support a combined endeavor on AI innovation and security.

President Trump’s visit is one component of an overall effort to enhance U.S.-UAE relations, an undertaking that also seeks to take on regional stability, as well as trade and technology. Both countries see mutual interest in ongoing development of AI capabilities that have become more and more crucial to 21st-century economic growth and national security.